What do we owe the church of the Middle Ages?

Familiarization with Church history should be enough to disillusion anyone about claims of divine authority in worldly matters.

Quite a bit actually.

>meaningless church documents

It is hard to parse out what came from the church and what came from medieval culture in general. So as long as we don't differentiate the two then we owe many of our social, political, and intellectual traditions to it to a considerate degree, and most of our good ones to a major degree.

The scientific and social revolution came about because religion lost much of its control over the state

No on the scientific revolution, yes on the social revolution to a degree.

There is no evidence to suggest that the church loosing power helped science. Especially when its foundations comes from the early experimental empiricists from the 13th century, and Oresme and the Oxford Calculators in the 14th century, and time when the church still had plenty of power.

Even the social revolution was just a mutation of medieval ideas, feminism being a prime example, which stems from the medieval adoration of the Virgin Mary and the resulting social effects, where women began to have serious power and prestige to a degree never seen before. The nation state and the balance of powers in government was also rooted in medieval ideas of the state. Mutations on many of these ideas became ascendant with a rise of anti-clericalism come the dark age of the enlightenment, but they were moreso turning medieval catholic ideas on medieval institutions rather than making a total intellectual break from them.

Proof?

Not him, and I don't have proof of such a sweeping claim, but he's an example of an important work destroyed by monks.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes_Palimpsest

It is difficult to believe that burning the entire library of Alexandria by religious bigots was an act of scientific support, just as imprisoning Galileo and later house arrest for life could be seen as church scientific support.

well, it was preserved in some form

they didn't just chuck it in the bin to rot

galileo was arrested because he was a cunt as I recall, not like he was the first man to propose information that changed the understanding of the order of the solar system

That's true, but incidental as the aim on their part was effectively its destruction.

Personally I don't doubt the church preserved some works that might have otherwise not survived, but they also declared anathema and destroyed a bunch of others that may have survived otherwise.

the aim on their part was to reuse the paper,

I don't see evidence they wanted the information destroyed

>galileo was arrested because he was a cunt as I recall
Not according to the inquisition, specificlly because he claimed the earth revolved around the sun, if you think that makes someone a cunt, you must meet lots of them

Now we're just splitting hairs. If they had thrown the book on the fire to start a fire, the aim wouldn't have been destruction then either, it would have been starting a fire. But their aim was undertaken in a fashion that they were sure would destroy it.

you've been reading the wrong cracked article

tell me where their intention is recorded

>I don't see evidence they wanted the information destroyed
Thats because believing in sky faeries and evidence are mutually exclusive concepts

Oh for fuck sake. Is it is impossible to admit that the fucking church did something bad?

is it wrong to say there's no indication that they specifically wanted the information destroyed?

I'll bet that bit sounded real clever in your head

Copernicus said the same thing and was invited to Rome to give talks on his theory. Nicholas of Cusa and Nicole Oresme were open to the idea but rejected it because there wasn't enough evidence. And they didn't get arrested because they weren't cunts.

If you had known galileo's history you'd know that the man pretty much alienated himself from the people and scientific community that supported him and made them pretty mad.

Scraping it clean would be an obvious conclusion,what do you think?

The Library of Alexandria was burned by Julius Caesar, not by Christians. Many of the works were fortunately copied, and their copies later found their way to the Imperial Library of Constantinople, which was unfortunately burned by either the Turks or the Crusaders, but we still owe it some major things, like the oldest entire copy of the Iliad.

Religion is the application of faith – belief without evidence – whereas science requires the use of testable hypothesis to disprove theories resulting in belief only with evidence.

For my next trick i will teach you how to paint by numbers

>faith – belief without evidence
Hmmm I don't believe that's faith

>It is difficult to believe that burning the entire library of Alexandria by religious bigots was an act of scientific support

We are talking about the medieval church, neither of your examples are relevant to that since they are from different periods entirely.

The two points you mentioned are also irrelevant in general. The Christian attacked pagan temples like the Serapeum, the "burning of the entire librsary of Alexandria' by Christians is entirely unsubstantiated.

>The Serapeum had housed part of the Great Library, but it is not known how many, if any, books were contained in it at the time of destruction. Notably, the passage by Socrates makes no clear reference to a library or its contents, only to religious objects. An earlier text by the historian Ammianus Marcellinus indicates that the library was destroyed in the time of Julius Caesar; whatever books might earlier have been housed at the Serapeum were no longer there in the last decade of the 4th century (Historia 22, 16, 12-13). The pagan scholar Eunapius of Sardis, witnessed the demolition, and though he detested Christians, his account of the Serapeum's destruction makes no mention of any library.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_the_Library_of_Alexandria

Likewise Galielo's theory itself was not considered problematic, only his teaching it as fact when he had insufficient evidence, and his slandering his formely patron and friend: the Pope, in one of his works on the subject. He was tried and put under house arrest WHILE other churchmen were publicly considering the same theory he had. Galileo was surpressed for being a cunt ( right or wrong), it had nothing to do with science.

How to you square this account with rational theology which does'nt take religious doctrine on faith but shows how it is rationally justified to believe the doctrines?

>it had nothing to do with science.
Galileo was a scientist

He disproved the geocentric theory through evidence collected by his observations through his telescope

The church claimed he had insufficient evidence by refusing to look through his telescope

>Galileo was surpressed for being a cunt
Thats what the church thought, but theyve been wrong on so many things

If I tear the pages out of a book and use it to start a fire, do I want that information destroyed? Probably not, I'm just starting a fire, but I am none the less doing something that will destroy that information.

Dude, you're historically illiterate if you think there's just one burning of the library of Alexandria.

>He disproved the geocentric theor
He didnt
>The church claimed he had insufficient evidence by refusing to look through his telescope
You have to give source on that man

>Galileo's discovery of the phases of Venus was thus arguably his most empirically practically influential contribution to the two-stage transition from full geocentrism to full heliocentrism via geo-heliocentrism.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei#Legacy

>The church refused to look through his telescope

False.

Galileo failed to make a case against the most important argument against heliocentrism: That if Heliocentrism was true then there would be an observable parallax shift in the stars location as the earth orbited around the sun. While later scientists were able to prove this, Galileo was not due to technical limitations on his equipment. He then went on to tell everyone he had proved it, was teaching students falsities, and slandering the rest of the scientific community and the Pope.They got sick of his shit, and put him under house arrest. While their political methods were debatable, scientifically the church was in the right, not Galileo.

it was pretty obvious that a lack of parallax shift meant the stars were really far away. he couldn't provide a case against it because it was literally impossible to come up with the evidence at the time. they were trying to tear him down in any way they could.

but the pages were not thrown in a fire were they

how about you admit you're coloring conclusions

Nice meme

The Dark ages
Oppression of women
Wars of religion
Islamic terrorism
Plague

you're forgetting birthing pains
and hair loss

The old text was destroyed, they did not care for preserving it.

yes, clearly was not valued by someone

Reminder that the Jews burned the library of Alexandria because they hate Greeks

nothing, all the pivotal figures of the medieval church are dead and all that is left is a corrupt shell that inherited the neat cathedrals and reputation which it uses to get away with molesting choir boys

the current pope isn't even the real pope

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecy_of_the_Popes

Nice hyperbole. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who will accept this poor argument, despite the fact that Catholic clergy commit far fewer sexual crimes than the average man.

except secular authorities come down like a ton of bricks on "average" sex offenders, they don't try to cover it up

Getting out of them alive, mostly.

Uniting Europe against mongol hordes and Ottoman invasion.

And later, universities and science.

>Owe
Shit history, my friend.

Language

With the exception of some of the early church father's railing against paganism - that wasn't the case through most of the middle ages. This separation of church and science primitivism is almost entirely a modern occurrence. Really, for a good long time, the ONLY people doing critical thinking and reasoning, examining evidence and counter evidence, while deciminating education, were the monks and clergy.

Really, I think a great number of the men of that era, despite being religious as fuck, woulda shat all over this "creationism" craze.

Hell, even in the more recent era - look where the big bang and theories of evolution originated.

The rebirth of urban civilization in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_and_Truce_of_God

>The Peace and Truce of God, by attaching sacred significance to privacy, helped create a space in which communal gatherings could take place and thus encouraged the reconstitution of public space at the village level ... In the eleventh and twelfth centuries many a village grew up in the shadow of the church, in the zone of immunity where violence was prohibited under peace regulations.

This.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitos_War

>Then Lukuas, leader of rebel Jews, moved towards Alexandria, entered the city, which had been abandoned by the Roman troops in Egypt under the leadership of governor Marcus Rutilius Lupus, and set fire to the city. The Egyptian temples and the tomb of Pompey were destroyed.

Oddly, and ironically, they always taught us that Julius "accidentally" burned it down dealing with Ptolemy shortly after Pompey was executed.

...Which says something about Liz Taylor's ability to fuck with public education, I suppose.

>Uniting Europe against mongol hordes
The Mongols were poised to crush western Europe if it wasn't for Ogedei's death. The Church also did very little to stop France from allying themselves with the Ottomans.

>it was pretty obvious that a lack of parallax shift meant the stars were really far away.

Or that they were fixed. Which was the more empirically sound theory at the time.

It was'nt like Galileo was the only one who had to deal with that argument. It was the standard one they taught in Science textbooks since antiquity. Just because 19th century atheists gave him a mythical status does'nt mean he should have been except from the basics of scientific inquiry, which requires that you deal with evidence appropriately when it contradicts your theory.

Laws against inbreeding/cousin fucking.
Thus an intelligent population.

I'll grant that they weren't meaningless simply because medieval administrative documents are highly necessary for research in the field.

Western Civilization

>. Really, for a good long time, the ONLY people doing critical thinking and reasoning, examining evidence and counter evidence, while deciminating education, were the monks and clergy.
The winners write history dont they?and yes,the period when the church dominated society and scientific learning has a name-the dark ages

interesting

The loss of about 1500 years of technological advancement.

How do you square that with all the technological innovations that took place in that period ?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology

Without the church, archimedies work would have never had a chance of survival.
Even albeit unintentional, it still survived by the deeds of the church.

Also, anyone who proclaims God is a
>magic sky daddy
>silly fairy man
Their opinion can instantly be disregarded.
They are probably underage, or severely autistic.

The dark ages ended with the Christian unity of the Carolingian Renaissance around 800, which also corresponded with the church actually dominating society. From that point on we advanced far past any point in the past and things like the University and the origins of modern science began to take form.

Class, this is your assignment for the fourth of July weekend.
Watch all 13 of these videos.
>entire class groans
Civilisation (1969): youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyRoZMECvnfUgkIyAE9ICeZUvVK_fc-wF

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology

> The period saw major technological advances, including the adoption of gunpowder
Invented by the chinese

>The development of water mills from their ancient origins was impressive
Especially since it took 800 years from the fall of the WRE

>European technical advancements from the 12th to 14th centuries were either built on long-established techniques in medieval Europe, originating from Roman and Byzantine antecedents, or adapted from cross-cultural exchanges through trading networks with the Islamic world, China, and India.
and this has convinced me that the church strangled science and innovation for 800 years,and christian scholars had to depend on other cultures to advance

>he hasn't seen the chart.
>from pic related to mud huts
I was joking
>implying it's still not true

Holy crap, someone who is actually trying to push the dark ages meme.
You understand that even before the Roman collapse, central Europe was relatively undeveloped.
The church founded a system of colleges, modern notation of music was developed, and many of the fantastic Gothic cathedrals were erected.

The church did nothing but preserve science and information, and then go on to distribute it.

Of course they are not perfect, but better than those filthy pagans who would have burned it all.

>Gothic cathedrals
Literally the coolest shit, I watched the "building the cathedrals series" (it was cringy as shit mind you), but it told some cool stories.
Like with the adoption of the water mill, iron could be refined better.
One cathedral was about to collapse inward on itself, so they forged an iron chain to put on the inside, and they installed it while it was still hot, so the links tightened and prevented the collapse.

>The church did nothing but preserve science and information, and then go on to distribute it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum

The list of people’s work on this index does not support the view that the Roman Catholic Church encouraged science or come to that, any free thinking. It included the works of Johannes Kelper, Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei, Frances Bacon, Rene Descartes, Konrad Gessner, Otto Brunfels, Blaise Pascal and many others. Philosophers were equally unpopular with Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Kant, Hume, Lock, Sartre making it onto the list.

Just because the church did not promote it does not mean it did not happen.
My point still stands.
The church, preserved, and distributed works.
Also I wish people would quit bringing up Gallileo; he committed libel against the church, basically did anything he could to piss off the Cardinals, and then was so shocked that his helocentric theory wasn't accepted.

>The church did nothing but preserve science and information
Only if it aligned with what it believed to be true.

See pic related, a bit past the dark ages, but the point remains.

>You understand that even before the Roman collapse, central Europe was relatively undeveloped.
You understand that when the Romans came the developed the area. It was the Church's rise that, instead of attempting to readopt and reuse an established order they set out and created their own, which took hundreds and hundreds of years, which meant the reinvention and recreation of many many institutes which had been around for eons. All so it could be done in 'god's favor'.

>and then was so shocked that his helocentric theory wasn't accepted.
because it was an empirical fact,if only the cardinals had looked down the telescope

>TheIndexwas enforceable within thePapal States, but elsewhere only if adopted by the civil powers, as happened in several Italian states.[47]Other areas adopted their own lists of forbidden books. In theHoly Roman Empirebook censorship, which preceded publication of theIndex, came under control of the Jesuits at the end of the 16th century, but had little effect, since the German princes within the empire set up their own systems.[48]In France it was French officials who decided what books were banned[48]and the Church'sIndexwas not recognized.[49]Spain had its ownIndex Librorum Prohibitorum, which corresponded largely to the Church's,[50]but also included a list of books that were allowed once the forbidden part (sometimes a single sentence) was removed or "expurgated"
Not as powerful as you think.
I would say that the central church was not as all powerful as you think it was.
Hell the Schism happens smack dab in the middle of the supposed "dark ages", and we can see tinges of reformation going on.

The best way that information and knowledge was distributed throughout the age was by way of the church.
>Roman's developed every area they went to
Central Europe was no where near as developed as main Roman provinces. They had a LOT of catching up to do.

Now, did the church extend this process? As you said for "gods favor"? Most likely. Was the entirety of central Europe in collapse after the fall of the Roman Empire? Not entirley, but mostly.
Would central Europe developed into the successful monolithic society that it is without the church (nobody has ever proposed an alternative), no. Probably not.
You're using the word empirical incorrectly.
If I were to put it simply, Gallileo talked shit, and got hit.

>Kant
>Banned by the church
>a bad thing

Galileo was the original fedora tipper.

The church would not adopt a new idea that hadn't been proven yet, especially with the protestant pissing match going on at the time, and risk losing face with a devout population.

They basically told Galileo "neat idea, but since there's no proofs you can't teach it as the new scientific discovery, so just teach it as a theory"
Galielo of course taught it, talked lots of shit, and basically made everybody mad. Just because it turns out he was right doesn't mean his science was good at the time, and it's only hindsight that has brought any of his credibility back.

Oh look, it's the dark ages weren't dark because I'm going to cite everything that marked the end of the dark ages as part of the dark ages meme.

It wasn't the Church's fault, and they should be indeed credited with getting us out of there in the end... But dem dark ages were pretty damned dark.

I propose we rename the Dark Ages to the "GERMANIC SHITS GET OUT REEEEEEEEEEEEE" Ages, which I feel more accurately describes them.

>Not as powerful as you think.
True,thats why it used the inquisition to terrorize people into "submission"

who else does that?

Inquisition was a meme, it really only occurred as a tool of the Spanish government in homogenizing their religious population and the figures have been grossly exaggerated.

There were 4 distinct inquisitions,the first following the Albigensian crusade

Welcome to Veeky Forums

>no. Probably not.
That's because we can't know we have what we got. That doesn't even remotely mean the way we got here today is the only way. Obviously we could speculate scenario's all day where we envision a medieval Europe without the Dark Ages, that will all be for naught though.

>The best way that information and knowledge was distributed throughout the age was by way of the church.
Yes I am not disputing this, but you are glossing over the fact that they didn't really publicize anything that went against what they said. They did the opposite, people were punished for speaking out too loudly.

>I would say that the central church was not as all powerful as you think it was.
I would say you vastly underestimate it's power. Sure at one stage it was it wasn't powerful, all 'empires' begin this way. But it was the central power throughout Europe and beyond in the medieval period.

I was about to write a 3 post 40k greentext about this. But got lazy.
Someone do it for me.

Dark ages are called the dark ages because of the lack of historical documentation compared to other eras.

How can that be? The church was promoting science and literacy until Galileo became a cunt. There must have been plenty of documentation burnt by the evil humanists during the enlightenment,so called because of all the bonfires!

...

The church were literally the only people who were still literate.

Secular literally became a synonym for illiterate. You have historical accounts of secular bishops, which doesn't make any sense until you realize that they're saying the bishop couldn't read.

Eternal Germans, destroying Europe again.

> You have historical accounts of secular bishops, which doesn't make any sense until you realize that they're saying the bishop couldn't read.
That's not what a secular bishop is.

You are ignoring that they created new technology to use gunpowder in way never used before.

>and this has convinced me that the church strangled science and innovation for 800 years,and christian scholars had to depend on other cultures to advance

Technology is not science. You need to disambiguate the two. Also, they still made massive innovations in the way they refined and improved on technology. It is extremely rare that anyone makes something totally new, minor changes on old technologies is how technology advances 90% of the time. According to your criteria every culture ever has had their innovation "strangled".

We already debunked the Gaileo claim. The church taught his theory as a theory, and he lacked the evidence to prove his theory despite saying that he did. He was imprisoned for political reasons, not scientific ones.

We're talking about the medieval period, not the dark ages.

We're talking about the medieval church.

lol no. He had insufficient evidence that "looking through his telescope" would not have made any difference to.

You do realize that the "dark ages" only lasted from the fall of Rome to 800 when the Carolingian Renaissance started, which was also when the Church solidified its power across europe. We're talking about the Medieval Period, 800-1400 here, not the Dark Ages. Sure you can complain about how after the fall of Rome things went backwards for awhile, but how can you blame the church when it was Church power solidifying and the mass conversion of northern pagans that corresponds with the end of the dark ages ?

Mostly the inquisitions were used to interrogate Jewish and Muslim spies, but details vary for each one. They are all vastly exaggerated though.

> He thinks that the humanists were active during the enlightenment
>He thinks that the medieval period was "the dark ages"

Just stop.

>We're talking about the medieval period, not the dark ages.
The Dark Ages is a part of the medieval period, yes.

You're firmly a product of the modern American "education" system.